Tweeting McCain compares Ahmadinejad to monkey
麥肯在推特上把阿瑪迪尼賈比作猴子

Sat, Feb 23, 2013 - Page 10

Outspoken US Senator John McCain raised eyebrows online on Feb. 4 when he compared Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to a monkey that the Islamic republic recently launched into space.

“So Ahmadinejad wants to be first Iranian in space – wasn’t he just there last week?” said a message on McCain’s official Twitter feed, followed by the headline and link to a recent story ”Iran launches monkey into space.”

The comments by the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, a strong advocate for tougher sanctions on Tehran for its nuclear program, followed Ahmadinejad’s claim earlier Monday that he is ready “to be the first man in space” under Iran’s ambitious program which aims to send a human being into orbit by 2020.

The slur by McCain, the senator with by far the most Twitter followers — nearly 1.8 million — elicited swift condemnation on Twitter.

“Wow, way to elevate political discourse,” tweeted @heyitsurban to McCain. Another user, @manolo_loop, wrote:”@SenJohnMcCain is racism funny?”

About 50 minutes after his original “monkey” tweet, McCain posted a follow-up. “Re: Iran space tweet - lighten up folks, can’t everyone take a joke?”